‘Poor guy:’ People drive past as man dies in Regina

After stumbling off a bus and falling to the ground, a man stayed in the same place for seven hours in Regina in sub-zero temperatures, to be found dead the next morning after dozens of passersby neither stopped nor called for help.

Regina police said that early on Dec. 31, a man was found dead on Fourth Avenue East. On Jan. 2, police reported the death was being considered non-criminal and that was all that would be released about it.

But there’s more to the story.

Surveillance video provided to 980 CJME from a nearby business shows nearly everything that happened in the man’s last seven hours.

Around 8 p.m. on Dec. 30, a bus stopped on Fourth Avenue. The video shows the door open and the driver talking to someone. The door closes and the bus moves up a few feet, then the back door opens and a man with a bag stands at the exit for a moment, and then stumbles and falls out of the bus to the ground.

That spot right next to the road was about where the man stayed for several hours, sometimes sitting or lying down.

Jeff Holt owns the business with the surveillance cameras. He said several vehicles passed by the man.

“He was up moving around, trying to flag people down as far as we can tell off of the video, but nobody stopped to even check on the gentleman, right? Roll their window down, say, ‘Hey, are you OK?’ If not, phone 911 or whatever,” said Holt.

“Poor guy. How many vehicles drove by? And they would have had to have seen this gentleman, but nobody cares to stop.”

Holt said he and his staff spent a lot of hours watching the video and it really hit home.

“Why don’t people care? If I’m sitting out there for four hours, five hours or whatever and people drive by, I wish they will stop in and check on me, see if I’ve still got a pulse or not,” he said.

Around 3:30 a.m. Sunday, a cyclist pedalled past; they’re the one who stopped to check on the man and called 911. Police said they didn’t get any other calls about the man.

The coroners service said the man’s cause of death hadn’t been confirmed yet and it doesn’t release preliminary information.

But officers told Holt the man had alcohol in his system and had begun taking his clothes off by the end, which can be a sign of hypothermia – paradoxical undressing. It got down to -14 C that night.

The most recent numbers show 16 people died of hypothermia/exposure in Saskatchewan between September 2022 and August 2023; 14 of them had drugs or alcohol in their system.

It’s unclear why the man got off the bus. The City of Regina has declined to say anything about what happened.

Holt believes the bus driver should have checked on the man after he fell out or should have called for someone to come and check on him.

Surveillance video from a local business shows police responding the morning after a man stumbled out of a city bus, then sat and lay on the ground for seven hours overnight while passersby didn’t stop. He was found dead early the next morning. (Photo provided)

Dangers of being out in the cold

It’s not known what the man’s circumstances were – whether he had anywhere to go – but if he didn’t have a place, that would have put him in the same boat as a lot of people in Regina right now.

Chrysta Garner was shocked to hear about the death. She’s a development co-ordinator at Carmichael Outreach.

She said there isn’t much for supports for people experiencing homelessness in that neighbourhood and there aren’t many supports at all in the city at that time of night.

“This was 8 o’clock at night; most city facilities are closed down by then. I think the only one that is available after 8 o’clock would be the Lawson itself as a warming centre,” said Garner.

The Lawson Aquatic Centre was more than an hour’s walk away from where the man was found.

Garner belongs to an extreme weather committee made up of emergency services and community-based organizations. She said the general consensus there is that there just isn’t enough space for people.

“It seems to be the cry that we hear everywhere,” she said. “What happens in Regina that I can speak of is that during the day, there’s quite a few places that they can go — there’s all of the outreach centres, there’s quite a few in Heritage, there’s quite a few in North Central – and then about 4 o’clock, everything starts dying down (and) all the centres start closing up.”

At that point, Carmichael also closes its doors, but Garner said staff there try to find people somewhere to go, whether they qualify for detox or a place at The Nest. But she said you have to be at those locations by 9 p.m. or risk not getting a bed. Mobile Crisis can be a resource as well to help people in emergencies.

Awasis All Nation’s Hope in North Central is open all night, but Garner said it an hour’s walk from Carmichael and it can take even longer in the winter with bad weather, which puts people at risk for things like frostbite.

The need in the community is getting worse, according to Garner.

“People don’t realize the impact that the economy has on everybody. This year, even our organization saw a decrease in donations and funding, so then of course there’s only so much that you can ask Regina or our area to give us because there’s so many people out there that are asking the same thing,” she said.

At this point, Garner said groups like theirs have to go to government and explain this problem needs to be addressed. And this week the City of Regina and provincial government did come together to provide Carmichael Outreach with funding to open its own overnight warming space, to open in about two weeks.

“Who else can do it but the people that are the frontline workers that see it every day? We have to be the voices of the people that are less fortunate that don’t have the voice,” said Garner.

The spot on Fourth Avenue in Regina’s Eastview neighbourhood where a man recently spent the last hours of his life while passersby didn’t stop or call for help. (Lisa Schick/980 CJME)